Medical Identity Theft Conflicting Studies Add To

Medical identity theft: Hillcrest Identity Theft

Medical identity theft happens when someone uses your info to obtain medical services or drugs. The information needed may be just your title and address. Other examples occur because an identity theft imposter used your medi cal identification card or quantity. This offense has affected about 2 thousand victims.

Additional victims find out when a medical provider calls about an appointment or locate that health records are changed because of the illness of the fraud. The problem of mixed medical records will soon be mentioned in the 2nd part of the show.

Two studies about medical identity theft awareness have already been introduced in June. The first research was conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of Countrywide Insurance. In a phone survey of more than 2,000 adults with health insurance only 15 percent stated they were comfortable with the term medical identity theft. Of that team only one in three can accurately determine the word.

If you liked this report and you would like to obtain additional data about credit fraud affidavit kindly stop by the site. According to the Nation-Wide study, no more than one-third of these called believed their medi cal identification could be stolen. Furthermore they found that most people do not understand comprehend the impacts of this offense. About 20 percent believed it might simply take two weeks to work out the problems caused by the robber.

The Experian/Ponemon study that has been released on June 26 surveyed 757 medical identity theft victims. This is the third year they've conducted this research. They found that the number of those who understood the definition of medical identity theft rose from 77 to 90 percent. It is a drastic variation from the Countrywide research.

Moreover the Ponemon study demonstrated that about half understood the person who used their information and could have provided it to that person. That is a trend that's been observed more as the cost of medical insurance rises and unemployment raises.

The Ponemon research identified some interesting information. Even though these participants had already been casualties, just 3-5 per cent said they may never reveal insurance ID with anybody and about half stated they don't need to just take any fresh precautions to prevent becoming a victim again.

Depending on those two studies I did one of my very own. I called 16 medi cal workplaces in the North Park area and asked if these were were familiar with the word medical identity theft. Only 3 stated they were and could give me a correct description. Whichever research is correct, my study shows that there is nonetheless a requirement for education on this subject.